Ever get confused by all the strategies out there for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division? What if there were a fun, friendly, character that you could associate with each strategy to help you keep them straight??
Introducing the Math Mights!
Strategic Intervention Solutions is thrilled to bring you a sneak peek of a new publication, due out during the Fall of 2017!
We have been working with John Lucas, of Johnny ‘Toons (https://johnnytoons.com/), to develop a series of posters that will use characters from Mathville called the Math Mights to help students visualize addition, subtraction, multiplication and division strategies. We went through a few different drafts (including beach-themed animals that were a “life raft” for math strategies) before we settled on our current characters. Johnny is truly an amazing designer and has captured the characters that were in my head!
We wanted to share with you a little of the birth of one of the characters…they start in pencil, then John adds in the color, and then he “vectors” them so all the parts of the character can move to complete their actions on the page!
Meet Decomposing/Composing, but you can call him D.C. He has a hat and a big mallet and loves to break numbers apart and put them back together. If D.C. were to tackle a problem like 15 + 16, he might decompose 16 into 5 and 11 and bond those two numbers together or compose them back together to make the answer a little bit easier to add.
The idea for this project was born out of a need to help our students solve problems in a variety of ways instead of just one, and to be able to communicate their reasoning. As we work with schools, we find that students tend to just know one traditional way of thinking or solving a problem. But when students build a depth of knowledge, their number sense becomes more solidified. A solid number sense is the foundation upon which students can practice higher order thinking skills that they can then use to accomplish 3 Acts Math Tasks and performance tasks.
We are still finalizing everything with prototypes and artwork, but we’re planning to launch the Addition Strategies collection of posters first, hopefully in September or late August in time for the start of the 2017-2018 school year. Included in the product there will be a parent companion to help introduce the characters to parents. We’re also hoping there will be a downloadable component of the characters with some simple independent work that kids can use to reinforce different strategies and some mini posters of the characters that the teachers can download with the products to give to students or hang around the room.
Since we are still working through prototypes, we cannot begin to take preorders at this time. However, if you’d like to know when Math Mights: Addition Strategies can be yours, make sure you’re connected! Like us on Facebook, Twitter, and make sure you’re signed up to receive the latest blog posts in your email box (below!) and you’ll be the first to hear about the release of Math Mights!
